Animal Farm (1999)

Regarded as one of the best books of 20th century, Animal Farm is a funny fable about some animals that, inspired by an old and wise pig, decide to banish the men and take control of the farm where they live. The story is clearly linked to Russian Revolution and we can see that some of pigs represent the leaders of the revolution, as Major represents Lenin, Snowball represents Trotsky and Napoleon represents Stalin. After they take control of the farm, the animals state 10 commandments that must be followed by every one. In the beginning all seems good, but later Napoleon takes the leadership and some strange things start to happen. The movie does good in showing many aspects of the book, with good effects and funny moments. My only complain is the very ending, that is different from the book and very disappointing...

To me, the saddest thing about this dreadful film is the presence of genuinely fine actors like Paul Scofield and Peter Ustinov. What these artists saw in the script that would make them want to accept it is something I simply cannot understand. It is understandable that non-talents like Grammar and Stewart would wish to be in anything, but Messrs Socfield and Ustinov?Everything went wrong with this, from its surprisingly poor script, to charmless direction, the uninteresting and unhelpful music and camera-work that may work all right on a TV commercial for mouthwash but not in what is supposed to be a serious production. A woebegotten attempt and a farrago. I could not recommend it at all.

I don't have much to say, but after reading 4 pages of the comment pages, which got boring because everyone said the same things, I decided to add one myself. When I was much younger, like 6 or 7, my grandma bought the movie for me. I lost interest and never saw the ending, maybe not even the middle. I forgot the title, and just now found out because I have to read the book. I've only read the first chapter so far, and then looked up 'Animal Farm movie' and found this site. The movie case came back to me (I mean, I remember it), and now I remember seeing at least some of the movie. The scene I really remember is when a horse was going to the glue factory or whatever. Being 5 or 6, (Now I think I was 5), this information was disturbing. Glue made of horses? Some kids have eaten glue. I didn't know the movie was set back in the past or anything. But that scene I have remembered off and on for years after that. I have to read the book (well, I guess I can get out of it), but I'm kind of looking forward to it because it seems interesting. Especially after reading all these comments...

... if you see it without blindfolds... if you see it just as it is, a fairy tale... just for kids... forget the story that supposed to be...If you take it serious like the most does, it is like a bad joke... Orwell have never been in USSR and what he knew about it was from stories that he heard from thirds... thirds like the traitors white Russians that escaped from Russia to england after Bolsheviks victorious revolution...So those stories were groundless and lies... After many years Orwell also proved to be a sting, that wrote down names of maybe communists, like Chaplin's and gave them at a semi secret British agency, so they could run them down... That was Orwell, just a big brother that put mad on the name of real heroes of the people, like comrade's Stalin...